


A coffee a day

by fighterandall



Category: NCIS
Genre: AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-03
Updated: 2015-01-03
Packaged: 2018-03-05 05:17:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3107552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fighterandall/pseuds/fighterandall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Multichapter AU fanfic where Gibbs never got over Shannon and Kelly’s death, no matter trying hard to get to his daily routines at NCIS. Kate Todd on the other hand is leading the team - fate has it’s tricky ways of putting people where they have to be, I guess. At least in my head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The first coffee is the sweetest

It’s one of those mornings when you drive to work through a blizzard. The snow is falling so hard on the windshield that the mechanics of the vehicle barely have the time to put it away before they have to return and do it again. The last thing you want, after having convinced yourself to drag yourself out of bed, dress and leave your cozy apartment, is to get out of the warm car even for the essential dark liquid that is running kind of more than your blood in your system now, after drinking it day after day after sleepless nights working on cases. Sometimes it even crosses your mind what had gotten into you that day when they offered you the job for you to take it.

Caitlin Todd is certainly not one of those people, who would say out loud thoughts of this kind, but she’s only human, and sometimes it’s a saving grace. No harm in thinking them, except hearing the tiny voice of doubt in your head, whispering the annoying “what if”. She looks at her wrist watch and barely lets herself let out a sigh before stepping out of the car and in the chilly Washington air.

There are only five steps to the door of the coffee shop, but she takes them with extreme caution – she has an important meeting with the Director of Intelligence today and highly suspects the high heels are going to be a killer for her mood only after a couple of hours.

The small shop – her favorite stop in the mornings, is situated right next to an apartment building. Some steps lead up to the door. She’s always in such a hurry she barely has time to register anything on her way to the shop and rush out, but today, balancing in her killer shoes, she sees a man on those steps. Kate frowns in disbelief as she watches him deliberately sit on the cold stone and pick a guitar out of what has once been black guitar case he’s clearly left on the ground just before she’s turned her attention to him.

As if he could have sensed her eyes on him, he turns around, meeting her gaze. For a second Kate is stunned by the look in those cold blue eyes and forgets she has to fight to keep her balance on the ice underneath the thin soft snow layer covering the sidewalk. By the time her stomach drops and her brain registers the fall, she’s halfway down the way to the cold hard ground. Her lungs are just filling with the cold morning air, inhaling some snowflakes on the way, getting ready for a late cry for help. Or pain. Whatever comes first anyway? Until a hand catches her midflight.

“You should be more careful, lady” she hears the rough low voice of the man with the guitar as she’s catching her breath “Maybe throw these boots away, going to kill yourself on this ice”

He lets her hand go as soon as she’s stable enough to stand on her own feet. Her hair has fallen on her face and eyes, so she pushes it away with the hand that’s not holding her purse. Now Kate can see him leaning down again, recovering his guitar from the ground where is had fallen when he’d reached for her, letting it go of his grip. The way he handles it, she notices certain softness in the touch of his rough hands, lingering over the light wood and strings, as if checking for the slightest possible damage, done by the drop.

“I… um… thank you” she finally manages to say, still a little confused from the adrenalin rush and the discrepancy betweеn his voice, eyes and hands in the last minute. Now she takes in the whole image of the man – worn black coat, black gloves without fingers, bleached blue jeans, dark boots. Not your typical beggar or street musician, she figures out quite quickly.

She only sees him shrug, his back turned to her. Okay, so now what?! Kate tries to think of something, anything else, that might be appropriate to say before she goes her way and lets him do his own thing. By now her hair is probably ruined by the heavy snow, her red coat will be soaking wet mere seconds after she gets into the warm coffee shop and she will be lucky if her legs haven’t frozen in the stockings she’s wearing. Bad day for a skirt, Kate, really bad day. After a few panicky seconds of struggle she just mumbles quickly:

“Do you want a coffee?”

The ‘I think you can use some’ never leaves her lips, but judging by his fast turn and cold look shot in her direction over his shoulder, he has definitely heard it in her voice. She has her answer before the words even leave his lips, accompanied by a low growl:

“No”

He turns his full attention to the guitar again, leaving Kate flushed and feeling guilty about not being a little more subtle about the matter. She thinks about trying to apologize, but she can’t quite figure what to say so she won’t hurt his pride – because she’s dealt with a lot of men under her command to know when a man thinks his pride is stomped on.

There’s nothing more she can do and besides, checking her wristwatch, she realizes with a gasp she’s nearly late, so she just looks at him one last time and gets into the coffee shop.

Compared to the cold outside, inside is the Sahara dessert. Kate tries to remove as much of the snow as she can from her hair and coat, but it quickly becomes clear it is a lost cause. With a sigh, she takes a few bobby pins out of her bag and tries to do something, anything, really, with her messed damp hair while waiting for her order. The cashier, a smiling boy at the age of probably eighteen, smiles at her while she fishes for some change in her pockets. She’s already holding the money for her latte to the boy when suddenly, she changes her mind.

“I’ll order a large black coffee too” she says fast, handing a bigger banknote to him. She barely notices his frown and confusion – Kate’s a regular and getting liquid life for someone else is definitely not something he has seen from her, when she inserts “No sugar”

The boy nods, shrugging at his stunned colleague at the coffee machine. Maybe the young stunnigly beautiful lady has finally gotten herself a boyfriend, or she’s running late and trying to bribe the boss, who knows. None of their business anyway. Though they’d be a little dissapointed in the boyfriend case.

Taking the order from the counter a minute later, Kate hasn’t quite figured what she’s doing. Despite that, she confidently leaves the shop, her heels somehow louder than all the other noise around, and steps onto the sidewalk again. She’s left her coat open inside and the cold is creeping up her body now, the wind stabbing her right through the not so thick suit and shirt. Okay so she definitely has a bad clothes choice day. Dinozzo would probably be extremely happy to remind her later, but for now, she’s holding two steaming cups – a latte and a black as the blackest night coffee.

Ignoring the wishes of her body for the nice warm inside of her car, she deliberately turns and walks towards the next door building. As it turns out, stepping with confidence on the ice makes her feel more secure on it – probably because her heels dig in it.

She finds the man sitting on the stairs, the guitar and the melody, coming out of it being the center of his world. A lot of people are passing by and what strikes Kate the most is he doesn’t even seem to care about the cold and all of those random strangers. He doesn’t have a cap or anything for them to put change into in front of him too. As if he’s there just to escape, to forget, to get lost.

Without a speaker and a mic connected to the guitar, it’s impossible for the melody to be heard above the heavy traffic. All of a sudden, that makes Kate sad. She looks at the coffee in her hand and wonders if what she’s doing isn’t wrong on all possible levels. He’s made it clear he doesn’t want coffee, and he obviously doesn’t want help. She’s just another stranger in his day, another random person hurrying way too much to stop and hear the melody his fingers pull gently out of those strings. Hearing even few of the notes though, she can tell he’s definitely a good musician.

Getting out of the trance she’s fallen into, Kate walks the final steps towards him, stepping right into his line of sight. The man lifts his head, the melody stops abruptly and for a mere second she sees him frown in confusion before he can manage to mask it with the same indifference she’s seen ten minutes earlier or so.

“Here” she hands him the paper cup, filled with black coffee.

When he doesn’t move an inch to take is from her, even though his eyes flicker with something that may be annoyance as well as anger, she steps even closer.

“Take it, as a thank you for not letting me fall”- Kate’s handing him the cup.

She sees his blue eyes getting even colder.

“I don’t want your sympathy” he just says with a low voice, suddenly getting up and nearly making her stumble backwards and fall. He doesn’t seem to care, though, he’s trying to get his guitar in the case and walk away as quickly as he can.

“What?! No, it’s not sympathy” she replies, raising her voice a little, just to catch his attention. He turns around to face her again, his blue eyes as if trying to reach her soul and read her real intentions behind that steaming cup. Kate takes a breath in, taking not a step back “If I wanted to offer you sympathy, I would have offered you money”

Probably involuntarily, his head tilts to one side. Now she has his attention. Kate takes another breath in.

“Come on, take the coffee, it’s only a gratitude, I promise” her voice is steady and uncompromising – the voice she uses to boss Tony around.

Slowly, and with his eyes never leaving her face, the man with the guitar takes the cup from her hand. And even though she can see his distrust, he takes a sip of it. Kate can barely suppress a sigh and a roll of her eyes. There, that wasn’t so hard, was it.

As if reading it somehow though, he scoffs:

“Good intensions lay the best path to hell” he turns and takes the guitar case from the stairs. With a final critical look at her, he turns around and leaves, taking the coffee with him and leaving her at the sidewalk “Take the advice, lady, throw those boots away”


	2. The second coffee is intriguing

Days go by. Some minutes linger a little bit longer than others and some fly away like the flip of a switch. A relatively easy case followed by a really, really tough one, that hits quite close to home for the whole team – a terrorist, a sniper – brings back some bad memories. Kate barely gets home for a few hours to catch on some sleep and change clothes before getting right back to office. More than a week goes by without her having time to stop by her favorite coffee shop.

The morning she finally manages to get up just the right few minutes earlier, the sun is shining over the cold streets not giving them even a little of its warmth. Kate can see her breath when she steps out of the car, parked a few meters up the street, right in front of the building with the stone steps. No fancy skirts and heels today, though. She would never admit it, but she’s been losing sleep after the sniper case. And when a woman has not gotten her beauty sleep… well, let’s just say skirts and heels aren’t her greatest priority. Coffee on the other hand definitely is.

Kate shivers under the layers of clothing when the change of the temperature gets to her. Quickly, she puts the collar of her coat up, desperately trying to conserve even the smallest bits of warmth that had soaked in her clothes in the car. Her eyes look absent-mindedly around the block as far as she can look. Subconsciously, she can feel something missing, but she can’t quite put her finger on it, so she tries to dismiss it. With not much of a result, really, bit still, she tries. Her thought drifts towards the weather as she opens the door and lets the smell of fresh coffee and hot cocoa fill her lungs and soak in her dark brown hair. The young woman can hardly remember a day that cold in the near past, and she has seen some pretty bad Washington winters in her time.

So imagine her surprise, when she comes out of her favorite coffee shop just a couple of minutes later with her latte in hand only to find a certain man preparing his guitar on the steps next door. For a second, she’s just too stunned to make a step further. Something in her brain starts ticking with irritation, asking her the one million dollar question – why the hell is she so surprised to see him and why does she care if he’s there on not. The immediate answer popping states ‘because he saved me from breaking something’ but there is no logic in that because of the simple fact he was an ass to her. So why? Why indeed.

Just like that snowy day a week ago, he takes the musical instrument out of its once black case and takes it gently in his hands. Even watching from a distance, Kate can see the care he handles it with, like it’s his most valuable possession. And maybe it is, she can’t really know that, can she?

This time, he doesn’t sit on the stairs – and really, she can understand that, she’s already freezing and she’s only been out a minute or so – and clearly the cold can erase all thoughts about sitting on a hard surface on the outside the moment they even appear in anybody’s head. Instead of that, he stands up, wondering for a second about something, and then leaning back, his back and shoulders resting against the wall. She can see the hard breath he draws in before gently pulling at the strings.

She knows nothing about guitars, but standing there, listening to the soft tones that barely get to her ears appearing under his possibly freezing fingers, Kate can only regret she doesn’t have that knowledge. Nevertheless, it’s like the melody just finds its way on its own – from his heart, thanks to the guitar in the cold dirty city air that is hardly worthy of it, through the crowd, between all those faces of indifference and plugged deep in ears headphones, and straight to her. Agent Todd – the fearless, usually armed, professional and trained agent Todd, makes only the motions needed to move away from the way the crowd goes and stand in just the right distance to hear the song, but not to disturb the man.

He never lifts his eyes. He doesn’t look at the strings he’s pulling, it’s as if he’s looking at something long lost, something he can only touch with the power of the music and the song he’s playing. Or maybe it’s just all in her head.

As every good thing the piece ends with a final gentle touch of a string. Kate shifts her weight and slowly approaches the man.

Even when she’s sure he can see her, he doesn’t lift his head. So she’s just standing there, her coffee getting colder by the second in her freezing hand, waiting for him to look up stubbornly. Finally, he lets out a heavy sigh and stops pretending he’s applying setting to the instruments aside.

‘What do you want, lady?’ he asks, his voice colder than the chilly air.

Kate isn’t taken aback at all by his rude tone, or if he is, she doesn’t even blink to show it.

‘That was beautiful’ she states. With a surprise, she finds out her voice is a little shaky and the words go out of her lips a lot softer and lower than she wanted them to.

‘Whatever, what do you want’ is the only answer, she gets. Kate sighs. For some reason unknown to her, she’s not letting this go.

‘Would it kill you to receive a ‘thank you’ and a compliment like a normal person’ – she speaks up before she even thinks about it. This, at least, makes him lift his head and look at her.

The curiosity, mixed with irritation and doubt is streaming from his cold blue eyes. It’s hard to hold his gaze, but she manages to make through it. There is a flicker she thinks she sees in those eyes, surrounded by little wrinkles that reminds her a lot of her commanders – a look cold, but stable, a look of a man who can obey and give orders at the same time, but doubt them when he thinks they’re not good and expect only respect and total obedience from the lower in rank.

‘Why do you care?’

The words are spoken so low she almost misses them; they’re barely a whisper struggling to get through the traffic noises and her ears. And maybe they’re not even meant to reach her. But the question puts her in a situation she doesn’t know how to get out of. Not really.

‘Because I think you should know your music is beautiful’ she says sincerely after a few seconds.

He scoffs with irritation shoving his hands in his pockets.

‘How do you know it’s my music’ he asks with sarcasm in his voice, emphasizing “my”.

She shrugs.

“I don’t. But I’ve never seen someone playing something that isn’t his own creation with such a passion”

His next words startle her with their hardness and coldness. His eyes had turned to ice ponds again:

‘You should really mind your own business, lady’

With those final words he picks up his guitar and leaves just like last time. But this time, Kate is determined to find out who he is, because from what she’s seen, he’s not just another person, nor a street musician.

And then it strikes her – the manners, the talking, and the controlled eyes. That man either is, or was Navy. And Navy is definitely her business.


	3. The third coffee is a charm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a short one, I know, I'm sorry.

Getting to the office takes forever. Even though she’s right on time, Kate feels like the time has entirely slipped out of her hands and is either going too slow and she’s way ahead of it, or racing faster than a specially bred race horse and she can’t even dream about catching up with it. The car, the traffic, the stupid elevator all make her tap impatiently on the steering wheel or on the surface of her coat. The final ting almost makes her shout “Finally!” when she strides quickly across the room towards her desk.

“Another bad morning, Kate?” Dinozzo teases the minute she steps into the bullpen. To his utter surprise, she doesn’t even seem to hear him. Tilting his head to the side curiously, he takes a look at her while she strides confidently to her desk. Her cheeks are all flushed and she seems restless in her suit, her hair just a little bit messy as if she’s tucked it nervously. Which she never does. Well, he’s an agent, he observes, even when it’s his boss that’s the target of observation. He wouldn’t be doing his job if he wasn’t. And today Agent Caitlin Todd is definitely an interesting person to be observed – all the little details off track, unusual for her.

The second she puts her cup of coffee down and before even taking her coat off, Kate’s already switching on her personal computer.

“Do we have a case?” McGee asks curiously, seeing that Tony doesn’t get a response from their boss.

“No, we don’t, I’d know about it” Dinozzo answers confidently, still trying to figure out why Kate is so restless and why is she keeping and eye on her computer while shrugging out of her coat quicker than usual.

McGee rolls his eyes.

“You’re not the center of the Universe, Tony, you don’t have to know everything” the younger man sighs.

“Yes I am and yes, I do, because, you see, probie…”

But he never gets to finish his though because Kate suddenly lifts her head. One of her killer stares is just enough for him to shut up.

“Fine, yes, okay, I’ll just get on with… the stuff I have here… in front of me”

“Thank you” Kate says. Looking around, she manages to finally compose herself.

So, first thing’s first… but what exactly is the first thing?

On her way to the NCIS headquarters, right after she reached the conclusion the man with the guitar is somehow connected to the army, the young woman had quite a discussion with herself. At first, her thoughts were focused only on finding out who he is. Later on though, she started asking herself the really important questions. Like why does she want to know his name so badly? It’s not as if he’s shown her any kindness besides catching her on that snowy morning or given her any kind of hints he wants to start any kind of communication with her. Still, there is something incredibly annoying and intriguing at the same time in him and that’s what makes her want to push against that wall.

So she’s sitting at her computer, thinking about a way to search for him without overusing her authority and position and at the same time without raising questions. After just a few seconds though, and pretty startled, Kate realizes she really doesn’t have anything to put her finger on so she can start that search. No name, no place, no number, no cell phone, nor any other indication that may point her any direction to start from.

Her long slender fingers linger just above the keyboard, but she can’t make them do anything because really, she doesn’t have anything. Letting out an exasperated sigh, Kate lets herself relax in the chair, just a little bit annoyed.

“Trouble, boss?” Tony lifts his head from the paperwork that has kept his mouth shut for some, even not much, time. She’s just about to cut him off, when her desk phone rings.

New day, new case ahead. Grabbing the cup of not that warm anymore coffee from its spot from the desk, she raises up and takes out her service weapon from the drawer she keeps it in.

“Grab your stuff, we’ve got a case”


	4. Four coffees indicate a bad day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It you hadn't realised it yet - the chapter titles are totally random.

The drive to the crime scene is silent. It is a really strange thing, actually. Usually, DiNozzo doesn’t shut up. This time, as if sensing that his boss is quite edgy, Tony keeps his mouth shut and his thoughts to himself. McGee, on the other hand, is stuck to his mobile, constantly tapping on the flat screen. He seems kind of restless, but he’s silent too. After half an hour of struggling through traffic, they finally arrive at the crime scene – a road, leading to a district just outside of town. It’s a typical road – nothing much about it, actually, with trees, covered with heavy snow growing beside and deep snowdrifts. As they approach the exact spot though, signs that something has happened start to pile up. At first, it seems cars have plugged into the road. Then in the distance, there is just a hint of blue and red flashes, but for the agents that is quite enough to know they’re on the right path. And just as they get to the local police cars – a lot of well-trodden snow area. And, of course, the obligatory yellow crime scene tape, stretched between the old trees and some of the cars for lack of better spots. Kate’s brow furrows when she doesn’t see the actual cause for their presence though. It always bugs her when she doesn’t know what she’s up against and the police officer in charge had been pretty brief on the phone.

“Look at those houses!” Tony says, getting out of the vehicle, his eyes dreamy when he takes a look at the first few buildings, just a couple hundred yards across from them. “Wouldn’t you like to live in a house like that, probie?”

Tim catches as much as a glimpse of the houses that are all probably property of people who make a decent amount of money, a lot more than he makes anyway, before shaking his head. “No. Not my type of place, Tony,” he grunts, taking out a crime scene kit and a big camera out of the trunk of the car. His breath is visible in the cold air and his feet almost instantly get cold. God, how he wishes to be back at the office doing research right now, maybe with Abby…

“Are you kidding me?!” the senior agent exclaims, waiting with his arms spread out for McGee to laugh it off. Instead, he gets an eye roll and a grim shake of the head. “You are serious, aren’t you?”

Agent Todd is almost out of her skin by this time. Today is one of those days when she wants them to be all business and Tony just doesn’t get it. What’s more, she’s just finished speaking to the officer in charge and she really doesn’t like what she’s heard. “No, he is not, DiNozzo, and if you don’t get yourself out there,I wouldn’t be “kidding” you either when I leave you on desk duty for the rest of the case.”

Ouch. Kate herself is a little startled by her outburst, but her confident tone shows no sign of insecurities and sometimes the guys have to be reminded who’s in charge anyway. Well, maybe Tonyespecially. Actually, only Tony. Still, she wants to deal with the matter with elegance, not force. Thinking about that, she puts up the collar of her coat, sighing secretly, and stands in front of the two men. “We’ve got three victims in what seemed to be an accident to the police – a man, a woman and a child.” She lets that sink in, her eyes moving from McGee to DiNozzo and then, towards the ME van, finally able to cope with the snow.

“What makes them think it’s not an accident, boss?” the senior agent asks. His tone is all business now, no sign of what has happened only a few minutes ago. He’s ready for action and Kate feels relieved. She’s been the head of the team for two years now. Two quarters of that time she actually spent gaining the trust, loyalty and respect of these two men, the lab scientist, and the medical examiner. As far as she knew, they’d had some issues with their previous two leaders, but had been extremely loyal to the guy before them, some sort of a legend in the ranks of NCIS with a weird name and tragic story they were all secretive about. Being their leader came with a lot of shared history between them and her becoming the outsider and kind of an enemy to them, the bad guy, woman, whatever, put in charge to make their lives miserable. Proving herself had been hard, but two years and a few life threatening situations and near death experiences later had put some bridges between them as a team and at a certain scale, even as friends.

Back to the case, Kate turns to Tony and continues, “A bullet in the head of the man who happens to be the driver. This is probably the cause of the accident in the first place. Now I need you, McGee, down there to take some photos of the crime scene. Just be careful – it’s slippery and I don’t want you in a cast for a month. Tony, I need you to go with him and collect the evidence, and most importantly, look for the weapon. I’m going to speak to the officers who arrived first on the scene.”

“On it, boss.” DiNozzo nods. His tone indicates there’s no bad water between them and no hard feelings whatsoever. Even though he can be a pain in the butt, he’s a good agent and thinking about it,Kate’s glad she has him around.

“Come on, McQuiet!”

Agent Todd smirks and digs her hands even deeper into her pockets as she turns to welcome the ME – Dr. Ducky Mallard, and his assistant – a young guy called Powel? Palmer? He’s been with them for a few weeks now, but Kate never got to see that much of him as to remember his name. Not yet, anyway. She felt a punch of guilt about it, but then again, it’s been a couple of hellish weeks. “Hey, doctor.”

The older man’s lips twitch into a sincere smile when he sees her. “Caitlin! It’s good to see you!” His voice is loud, but raspy, as he shakes her hand, then, continues, while his assistant – Palmer indeed, as the name on his jacket states – takes a stretcher out of the back of the medical van. “Ah, well, good for us, but not for the poor person who lost his life. You know, statistics show over a few thousand people die every year in accidents. That’s why I tend to avoid driving outside of town in the snowy season.”

Kate barely suppresses a smile as the short and a little bit chubby man continues his babble about cars and victims. She can actually remember the first time she met him and how he wouldn’t stop talking about the structure of the heart and the various reasons it can fail. And then all of a sudden he started talking about a conference and a woman and it got really weird. Ducky was halfway through the story about the drinks they were having and how they affected them when Kate asked him about the autopsy report she’d actually come down there to see. He was a funny guy and if they had the time she’d really love to listen to his stories and lessons, but alas, they didn’t. The policemen are getting impatient to get home; also, Tony and McGee are beginning to crystallize in the cold.

“Well, the season definitely wasn’t lucky for these three people.” The agent shakes her head as she leads the way to the slope, walking to the actual accident site. The car is down in the ditch. It is not very high, just a meter and a half, and Kate is wondering why the woman and the boy hadn’t survived the crash. The vehicle doesn’t seem that muchsmashed. She tries not to jump to conclusions anyway. Evidence is what leads her.

She’s up for a surprise when they go down the slope, though. “What have you got?” she asks Tony, who’s just out of the car.

“Credentials,” the agent states somehow darkly. “The woman and boy are Laura and Kyle Spade, 39 and 12. The driver’s documents claim his name was Joseph Green. He was 38.” A pause in Tony’s voice follows when he looks at her. “He’s one of ours - I found a badge and a holstered service gun.”

Agent Todd feels her face flinch. She doesn’t bother to hide it. “Any idea of his connection to the boy and the woman?” she asks. Ducky is almost by the spot they’re standing now, helping Palmer.

“None.” McGee shifts to meet her gaze, too. “But there are bags in the trunk. Seems like serious preparation for a long time away from home to me.”

“You’ve taken pictures?”

McGee only nods in affirmation.

“Good, let’s help Ducky as much as we can and go somewhere warm.”

“I looked at the bullet hole, boss,” Tony interjects, letting his words settle in. “It looks like an execution. The car has traces of impact on one side, but it’s hard to determine with certainty because it seems like the car rolled over on its way down.”

Kate looks at the car. The bodies are still there and she can see them. A woman, a man and a boy, possibly going on vacation.Or running from something that got them before they got to safety. Her heart suddenly feels heavy. By now Ducky has put on his surgical gloves and gets closer to the site. The moment he looks closely at the bodies, his face turns pale, his brow furrows and his lips turn to a thin line.

“Everything all right, Ducky?” Tony asks before Kate can get the chance.

“I’ve seen this before,” the medical examiner says, getting on his feet. “This… this crime scene. Excuse me, I need a minute.” With these words, spoken in a low, shaky voice, he takes the gloves off and walks away from the car, leaving three astonished agents and a clueless assistant standing by.


End file.
